Food for thought on cost of eating

THANK you Jayne Dowle for your article on healthy food research (The Yorkshire Post, October 13). I am in total agreement.

I am really surprised that so called intelligent people doing the research at Cambridge University about the cost of healthy food against the cost of junk food can come up with these results.

This has been done on a 1,000 calorie count. Why are people overweight? Because they eat too many calories!

Of course it will be more expensive to have 1,000 calories of healthy food – that is what healthy eating is all about. You can have a mountain of healthy food and not put weight on.

In contrast, 1,000 calories of junk food probably comes from eating just one beefburger which is obviously going to be cheaper than two or three full dinner plates of healthy food.

Why are we being bamboozled by this so called research and how much did it cost for someone to undertake it?

From: Hugh Rogers, Messingham Road, Ashby.

WOULD some kind reader please tell me when and more importantly, why, the rather exotically named “gipsy toast” was re-named, much more boringly, as “eggy bread”? A small point, I know, but as children, we only ate what was my mother’s way of feeding two children on one egg because it sounded sort of romantic.

“Eggy bread” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

From: Mrs A Holdsworth, West Garth, Sherburn, Malton.

I WHOLEHEARTEDLY agree with Andrew Suter (The Yorkshire Post, October 11) re Morrisons’ “smoke and mirrors”. When will their highly-paid bosses realise that a large majority of their customers need their cash in their hand each week, not possibly a bonus voucher weeks later?

The same with their other bonus offers. As a widow on a pension I can’t afford to spend £40 a week over four weeks to get £10 off another £40 spend.

Until I notice benefit from their “cheaper prices”, I shall continue to shop at Lidl, to get my cheaper prices straight away, Asda for a mini-shop and Heron for the majority of my frozen goods. I look forward to Heron opening their larger shop in Malton.

Wake up Morrisons and come down to earth. A lot of your customers are on a low wage or pension and have small families.

From: Brian H Sheridan, Redmires Road, Sheffield.

I AGREE with every word of RM Whitaker’s letter detailing the role played by supermarkets in food wastage (The Yorkshire Post, October 14). I would only add that their devious strategies are the main reason for my wife and I turning to the discount stores. Pricing at Aldi and Lidl is consistent and transparent: two for the price of one and dubious “half price” offers favoured by the supermarkets are useless for pensioners, for example, whose rate of consumption of perishable goods is much less than younger families.

Anyone who has the time to browse round the big four will find disingenuous pricing which is an insult to the shopper. For example, at Asda recently – and they are by no means the worst offenders – I was about to buy a case of 12 beers until I found that three packs of four of the same beer on the next shelf turned out cheaper. What we are seeing now is shoppers buying the bulk of their food at the discount stores and using the major supermarkets only for the odd item.

Memories of Wilson

From: Howard Gledhill, Butterley Lane, Holmfirth.

MALCOLM Barker’s article on Harold Wilson (The Yorkshire Post, October 11), where he mentioned my father Raymond Gledhill, made me recall when I obtained my Queen’s Scout award in 1965.

My father informed Harold Wilson of my achievement, who promptly sent a telegram from No. 10 congratulating me.

In those days we were invited to parade in front of the Queen at Windsor Castle to receive the award.

When my father was in London at election time, he was in a large group of reporters hoping to interview Harold.

When he saw my father in the crowd, he promptly called him over and gave his Yorkshire friend an exclusive interview. He never forgot his old friends.

Immune from rules of road

From: Patsy Peacock, Laycock Lane, Laycock, West Yorkshire.

HOW I agree with Mr Sidebottom’s letter (The Yorkshire Post, October 9) about HGV drivers. Over the last 12 months I have been up and down the M1 on numerous occasions with all the 50mph limits by the roadworks.

I, too, try to keep to that limit and am constantly overtaken by heavy goods vehicles. What I really would like to know is are they ever caught and fined by the “average speed check cameras”?

From: Peter Hyde, Driffield.

YOUR correspondent Trev Bromby (The Yorkshire Post, October 14) asks when are the police going to do their job with regard to law-breaking cyclists.

I can give him an answer. Never. There are fewer and fewer police officers walking our streets and they have far too much to do than bother with a mere cyclist.